To ask if it's possible to have a good sleeper that's breastfed?

[CoalCraft]

Hi, sorry if this question comes across as ignorant. I always intended to breastfeed DD but for a variety of reasons we never got hang of it, so instead she was fed exclusively on pumped milk in a bottle for four months, then we transitioned to formula when I couldn't take pumping anymore. So basically she's always been bottle-fed, though what's in the bottle has changed over the months. She's also always been a decent night sleeper. She's nearly a year now.

We're now thinking about dc2 and plan to start TTC soon. I am 100% committed to ensuring dc2 gets breast milk for at least as long as DD did, even if it means going back on the pumps.

But there's one thing that's making me reluctant to try direct breastfeeding, at least beyond the "fourth trimester" stage, a d that's that every time I read about a poor sleeper on here, a baby 6+ months old that wakes every hour, it always seems to be a breastfed baby wanting boob. The early stages where DD needed feeding every 2-4 hours nearly killed me and even now I find the night wakings tough, even though she sleeps through about half the time and is generally pretty good. DH does more than his fair share at night, too - think I just have a low tolerance for sleep deprivation!

So are breastfed babies more likely to be poor sleepers? I don't mean in the newborn stage as of course all newborns need regular feeding through the night, but later? Does anyone have a breastfed baby that sleeps well? I'm fully aware that there are bottle fed babies that are poor sleepers!

Sorry for the long preamble to this post, it was mostly in the hopes of not sounding goady. This is a sincere question and not meant to trigger a bf Vs FF fight.

DS1. EBF and slept through from 10 weeks.

He was fairly unusual though, in that he was a super efficient feeder at that stage, only feeding 5 times a day or so.

Ultimately you just have to work with the baby you get.

I had two 100% bf babies and both slept well. Did they wake to be fed in the night? Of course! But apart from that they both slept well.

I couldn't have endured pumping though. Can you get support from a lactation consultant this time so you can actually bf? It makes it so much easier and quicker. If you have to pump every time, including in the middle of the night, that would be worse than ff for faffing about and sterilising, etc.

Dd1 was given a bottle of expressed milk by her Dad at about half past 11 at night while I slept, that saw her through until 5ish.
Dd2 wouldn’t take a bottle but she was sleeping through from midnight until 6ish from about 3 months.

I can't see a link to the actual research paper for the Swansea research? My understanding is that while you absolutely do get individual EBF babies who sleep well (as shown by many anecdotes on this thread) on average they're more likely to wake more often in the night and until older - there's a nice summary written for a popular audience here: www.google.com/amp/s/expectingscience.com/2014/09/09/lets-face-it-formula-fed-babies-sleep-better-from-their-parents-perspective/amp/

DC1 was awful at sleeping and breastfed. DC2 slept through from 4 weeks and breastfed.

My dd ebf slept through at 3 months....she's a great sleeper

Both EBF until over 2. Both dreadful sleepers and most definitely for comfort and not settling themselves.

Would still do the same for a third though.

I think it's to do with routine rather than the milk.

You don't have to feed on demand just because you are breast feeding. It's purely my own experience and observations but I believe routine helps babies sleep. Mine were ff and slept through at 4 weeks and 6 weeks. I was bf and slept through at 8 weeks.

Yes!
I had 3 dc, all ebf and all treated the same way at bedtime.
Dc1: 12 hours through every night from 8 weeks. She also slept 3 hours in the afternoon.
Dc2: Never slept longer than 2 hours at a stretch until she was given medised aged about 18 months.
Dc3: Slept through every night from 7 weeks old when he wasn't ill (which was about 2-4 days out of every fortnight)

I had one. DS3 was breastfed and he was a great sleeper from day one.

DD, age 6-13 weeks. Then she got chickenpox & not so good after that. Was nice while it lasted, though!

I'm always reminded that

1. Ferber Method became very popular in USA when /where almost no one was breastfeeding
2. Ferber himself co-slept until his kids were age 3yrs+ (!!)

Yes, currently on no.3, 3 months old and sleeps for 12 hours with one feed during the night. As they get older I tend to find a good feed 5 times a day between say 7-7 means they sleep well. If you let them use you as a dummy for comfort then that may not work, I use a dummy up to 6 months for sleeping and try not to feed to sleep ...easy to do but can make them want you every time they wake in night. I think it works best to have a routine for feeds and sleeping ...however unpopular that idea may be with some...

Both my girls were breastfed. Elder one was classic breastfed baby- breastfed til 2 and was still waking in the night. Didn’t sleep through until she started school. Second was a different kettle of fish though. Very good mapper and night sleeper, started sleeping through at around eight weeks. However she lost all interest in the breast at around ten months and weaned herself off and that was that. So perhaps she just never was that bothered about it.

All my kids were/are breastfed and I did pretty much the same - never sleep trained etc. Dd1 was a brilliant sleeper from the start and was sleeping 12/13 hours in her own room by 9 months old. Dd2 was shocking and would only sleep on my chest until 3 months. First time she slept through was a week before her 2nd birthday. Shes 3 now and still creeps into my bed almost every night and takes an hour sometimes of storys and songs and stroking her arm to go to sleep. Dd3 is 8 months and pretty good, she usually wakes twice to feed - once around 9pm which takes 5 mins and then for a longer feed about 4am. I'd say she will be sleeping through by 1.

At one point when dd2 was waking hourly i did decide to blame.breastfeeding and decided to night wean her - that led to months of hell where she still woke but I'd lost my best tool to get her back to sleep. But eventually she started waking less so whether that would have happened anyway who knows. Good luck, hopefully you get another good sleeper!

Both of mine did, one at 6 weeks one at 8 weeks

My formula fed first was up often in the night and harder to settle after a feed. My second who was breast fed woke a similar amount to begin with but he fed for shorter periods and drifted off much easier. The second slept through at a younger age than my first and also slept better during the day

I think what you need to bear in mind is that if a baby is a poor sleeper and they're BF it's easier to stick them on the boob than Pat, rock, sing etc which a bottle feeding mum would probably do first because making a bottle at night is such a faff. Sadly my BF baby is a terrible sleeper but she's always been a high maintenance one

My very unscientific observations from here and real life suggest it's the EBF babies who co-sleep that have the terrible sleep with hourly feedings. The ones who are fed and settled back into their cot like most bottle fed babies are similar to babies on formula I suspect.

My first was terrible for the first 7 months - silent reflux and then too used to being held upright after a feed to settle well in her cot even when the reflux had eased. Moving her to her own room at 7 months transformed her sleep - slept through the first night.

Second was an excellent sleeper from the off, although she's one now and between teething and illness her sleep is terrible. She doesn't get breastfed overnight any more though.

Both EBF as babies.

I've heard these babies exist. I think it's pure luck tbh

Two excellent sleepers both EBF.

Yes of course its possible but down to luck or genes or something. I had 3 all of whom were on the decent side of sleeping, I didn't co sleep although - dc3 was in a side cot and probably the best sleeper of the lot, dc2 was a good sleeper but went through a short dodgy stage at 4 months and a longer dodgy stage of early rising 😴 in my case the boys were slightly better than our girl, although she is dc1 so there might have been more over parenting.

Mine seems pretty good, I think! She was exclusively breastfed like I never pumped or expressed or used formula. She slept through the night from 8 weeks to 4 months. Then went back to waking up to 4 times a night for a feed, but she fed herself to sleep each time in about 15 mins so no drama resettling her. I had massive milk supply with fast letdown so feeds were never very long. At 10 months I put her into a cot in her own room (previously co sleeping) and within a week she was sleeping through the night. Continued breastfeeding until 20 months when she basically self weaned.

My EBF baby girl sleeps from 11:00pm - 07:30am

She will inherit everything. All of it

Her brother didn't sleep until he was 3

So out of our NCT group of 8, plus 2 cousins same age babies, DD was the best sleeper up to age 12 months. We did get hit by the 4 and 6 month sleep regressions but other than that from about 6 months she would sleep through.

DD Who is now 14 m has nights of terrible sleep due to current separation anxiety and starting nursery so constant illness, in which DH goes in the first couple of times to settle to keep the current BF link separate from night sleep (tried to stop BF to sleep around a year old when she was eating lots more and could have water in the night if thirsty)

So I would say overall the whole terrible breastfed sleeper never affected us - other things affected more like regressions/weaning/nursery and separation anxiety

Once past the tiny baby stage, both DTs were great sleepers. Ebf and I continued feeding to 12 months, tho it was a token bedtime feed by then.